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The Toni Morrison Forever Stamp ceremony was held on March 7, 2023, in New Jersey, on the campus of Princeton University at Richardson Hall Auditorium. The ceremony was opened by Princeton’s senior lecturer in the Lewis Center for the Arts, Michael Cadden. The program opened with a recording of Toni Morrison’s sonorous voice reading from her novel “Jazz,” while her image and covers of her books were displayed on a screen above the stage.

 

Tributes were given by the Dean of the Faculty, Gene Jarrett; Professor Ruha Benjamin; President Christopher L. Eisgruber; Pritha Mehra, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of the Postal Service; photographer Deborah Feingold; Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden; and Senior Lecturer in the Lewis Center for the Arts, Michael Cadden.

 

Princeton Army ROTC presented the colors, and members of the Old NasSoul acappella group performed the national anthem. The vocalists later returned to the stage to sing "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" and “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

 

During the ceremony, a letter from former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama was shown on the screen and read. Also, a video message from Oprah Winfrey was projected on stage. 

 

After the ceremony, members of Morrison's family came on stage for photos with the oversized reproduction of the Morrison stamp. Also, after the ceremony, some participants in the ceremony signed autographs on the stage for attendees. One of Morrison's sons, Ford, is a project manager for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He attended the dedication with his daughter Safa.   

 

Morrison was honored with a stamp previously in Sweden,1993, the same year she became the first African American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2000, the country of Palau issued a stamp as part of its Visionaries of the 20th Century series.

 

Over the years, Morrison won a Pulitzer Prize for Beloved and a National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon. She received numerous accolades including the gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Emerson-Thoreau Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2012, and the National Humanities Medal in 2000. 

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 Many of her novels have been translated into at least 20 languages, including The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015). Her last book, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations, was published in early 2019.

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Attendance was a little light compared to other stamp ceremonies I've attended over the years. I was told that about 250 people attended the Morrison ceremony.  About 15 to 20 members from ESPER were in attendance from DC, MD, NY, PA, and NJ.  Artis Montgomery, USPS First Day Ceremony Director and Lucien Dowdell, Princeton University, Senior Production Manager at the performing art center, and their staffs did an awesome job for Toni Morrison’s First Day of Issues Ceremony. I must say this was one of my favorite First Day of Issues ceremonies I've attended in 25 plus years.  In 2004, on January 20, I attended the Paul Robeson First Day of Issue stamp ceremony which also was in Princeton.  

 

 

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